Cuban Jam Session: Volume 2

Descarga is the Cuban tradition of extended, largely improvised jam sessions built on Afro‑Cuban dance grooves and montuno vamps. Emerging in 1950s Havana and later flourishing in New York, it brought the spontaneity of jazz to Cuban popular forms such as son, mambo, and chachachá. Typically recorded by all‑star studio ensembles, descargas feature rotating solos over repeating guajeos (ostinatos), anchored by the clave and a driving percussion section. They are celebratory, high‑energy gatherings where arrangers set up simple harmonic frameworks and horn "moñas" (riffs), then let the players stretch out.